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President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks are unique for many reasons. One thing that makes several of them stand out is that drug use from their recent or distant past is not a major issue, is overshadowed by other issues or is not currently raising a furor in an era when views of some drugs are evolving.
Alongside the investigation into whether Matt Gaetz had sex with an underage girl are reports of illicit drug use, all of which the former Florida congressman denies. It’s almost certain that he will be asked whether he has ever taken illegal drugs during Senate confirmation hearings for him to be the nation’s top attorney – a role in which he would oversee the Drug Enforcement Administration, among other agencies.
While Gaetz denies any drug use, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pleaded guilty to felony heroin possession in South Dakota in 1984, a grim chapter in his road to recovery. He openly talked about being an addict during the presidential campaign season.
Now an advocate for healthier food, Kennedy wants to “Make America Healthy Again” as Trump’s pick for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. But his vaccine skepticism has gotten more attention than his past. A classmate at Harvard University, the author Kurt Andersen, wrote in The Atlantic earlier this year that he bought cocaine from Kennedy while the two were students.
Kennedy brings his addiction worldview to prescription drugs such as those overseen by the Food and Drug Administration, which he would oversee if confirmed as HHS secretary. Of the popular weight loss drug Ozempic, for instance, Kennedy said on Fox News recently that pharmaceutical companies are “counting on selling it to Americans because we’re so stupid and so addicted to drugs.”
Elon Musk, meanwhile, has been tapped to co-lead the “Department of Government Efficiency.” While that isn’t an official Cabinet position, Musk’s companies are on the receiving end of billions in government contracts. He openly talks about his prescription use of ketamine, the drug many Americans likely first heard of with the death of actor Matthew Perry last year.
After smoking marijuana in public during a live interview for Joe Rogan’s podcast in 2018, Musk said he agreed to undergo random drug testing for three years at the request of NASA, which pays billions of taxpayer dollars to Musk’s SpaceX. But Musk denied allegations of past drug use as reported in The Wall Street Journal early this year.
Federal employees are barred from taking illegal drugs, and there are no reports to indicate that any of Trump’s Cabinet or other administration picks are using illegal drugs.
It is not unprecedented for Trump to hire people known to use drugs in the past. In Trump’s first term, his top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, had a history of drug use and had talked about his many years of sobriety. Kudlow is not angling for a role in Trump’s second term.
CNN has reported that this year, Trump’s team is bypassing long and cumbersome FBI background checks for some of his Cabinet picks. Ultimately, it’s up to Trump, as president, to decide who he shares information with, according to CNN’s report.
Past drug use was a major issue used by Republicans against the Biden White House, because the president’s son, Hunter, had faced addiction, which helped fuel behavior that led to federal gun and tax charges. But note that Hunter Biden is not a Cabinet-level official in the administration, nor has he had any official role.
Trump, meanwhile, is a teetotaler and has said he never took drugs, had a drink of alcohol or smoked. He talked in depth about watching his brother, Fred, descend into alcoholism during an August appearance on Theo Von’s “This Past Weekend” podcast.
Trump seemed interested by Von’s discussion of his own addiction and what it’s like to take drugs. “Cocaine will turn you into a damn owl, homie, you know what I’m saying?” Von told Trump.
In terms of policy, Von sounded adjacent to Kennedy when he complained of lobbyists for pharmaceutical companies – something on which Trump didn’t offer in-depth thoughts. He also did not mention that it was his Department of Justice during his first term that negotiated a controversial deal with the Sackler family that was recently struck down by the Supreme Court. The Sacklers are the family behind Purdue Pharma, the company that developed OxyContin, a highly addictive drug.
Trump has been on both sides of how to address the nation’s drug problems and opioid epidemic. In one video, he both bragged about his efforts as president to help people in the throes of addiction but also promised to greatly expand use of the death penalty for drug dealers.
He has promised to pressure Chinese President Xi Jinping to cut down on the flow of ingredients used to make fentanyl out of China and into Mexico. That has also been a priority of the Biden administration. Trump has focused his pledge to shut the US border both as something that is required to stem the tide of undocumented immigrants as well as to fight cartels flooding the US with deadly fentanyl.
Trump voted along with more than 55% of voters in Florida this month in favor of legalizing both marijuana and psychedelics for recreational purposes. It was a position that put him in opposition to Republican leaders in the state. In Florida, state constitutional amendments require 60% of the vote to pass, and the measure was defeated by a 44% minority of voters.
There is one drug-related item on which Joe Biden and Trump agree. When he endorsed Florida’s failed marijuana amendment, Trump said he would carry on with the process, begun by the Biden administration, of reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous substance in the eyes of the federal government.
